Gideon's Angel Read Free Page B

hold out?” I hissed.
    “I’ll find where the prisoners are. Don’t worry,” D’Artagnan said.
    His arrogance burned brightly indeed. “I shall hold you to that, monsieur ,” I said quietly.
    The Grand Rue held even more rebels. My Gascon musketeer sailed straight away across the street, carrying Andreas and me in his wake. After a few minutes it became painfully plain that d’Artagnan didn’t have a clue where the prince was being held.
    “This is near the spot he fell. I know it,” he hissed at me when he saw my disdain.
    “But near isn’t close enough is it, my friend?” I shot back. It was time for other measures if our mission was to stand any chance at all and we were to get back alive. I reached into my pocket and retrieved something I had hoped not to have to use.
    The brass device filled the palm of my hand as I raised it up, full in the moonlight. D’Artagnan recognised it straight away.
    “That belongs to the Cardinal! How did you get it?”
    Andreas grabbed my wrist to get a better look. “Why, it’s a sun dial.”
    “It’s no sun dial,” I said. “It is a compass.”
    “And a rare one at that,” added d’Artagnan. “You stole it from his field table today. But it will do scarce good. Just what are you playing at?”
    I didn’t answer him. I raised the compass up to chest height and held my other hand over it palm down. And then I started to recite what I had been taught.
    “ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti... In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti... In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.”
    The needle, motionless and straight on north, now began to slowly revolve.
    “Witchcraft!” whispered d’Artagnan. “Stop this now, you old fool!”
    Andreas took a step backwards, his eyes big as supper plates. I continued the incantation.
    “ Invenium... quem... quaera.”
    The needle began to quaver, slowing until it stopped dead. “Now we know where the prince is,” I said. Andreas looked at me, shaking his head. “It’s a little trick,” I said. “One I picked up in your country a few years ago.”
    “And you’d better not show it to anyone else,” said d’Artagnan, his face hard. “Not if you value your neck.”
    “We can argue the sanctity of it later. Now we must be quick. I don’t know how long it will keep pointing the right way.”
    The whole of the village was stuffed full with rebels but most were too busy thieving what they could from the houses to bother us. We walked up the street. I saw the needle move again. It led us straight to a large house set back from the road.
    Peering through the open door that rocked upon its hinges, I spied a table full of rogues playing at cards, illuminated by one small tin lantern. For the moment, the five contented themselves with cursing and laughing, their muskets and halberds stacked against a cupboard.
    D’Artagnan gestured for us to move away and we crept along the side of the house, looking for a back way in. Fortune was smiling so far; the alley led to a tiny courtyard where at the back of the house was a door to a kitchen. The voices of the gamesters carried down to us from the front of the house and, in the reflected moonlight, I watched as Andreas and d’Artagnan felt their way forward until they found a staircase.
    “Have a care, my friends,” I said and we began our climb.
    I heard d’Artagnan whisk his poniard from its scabbard. We reached the top, carefully shuffling forward in the gloom. Rounding a wall, faint candlelight now afforded us a view of the front room.
    Three men lay upon the floor, feet bound with rope. The only furniture in the room was a little table and stool and it was here that another tin lantern burned, its tallow candle stinking and sputtering in the last gasps of life. One of the prisoners appeared half dead, his bloody head bandaged, face ashen even in the faint orange glow of the chamber. The other two spotted us, and d’Artagnan thrust out his open palm,